Y Niwl

It feels as though there should be something sad about reaching the point in your life where you’re listening to an instrumental beach rock band that have been featured in Total Guitar magazine. In fact, as a doe-eyed pubescent, scavenging through unsold copies of Billie’s ‘Honey to the B’ in Woolworths (or whatever your generations pop culture touchstones are), the thought may well have brought about tears. But there is nothing dirty or shameful about falling in love with Welsh quartet Y Niwl, but there is something crushing about the inevitability of it.

Translating from Welsh as ‘The Fog’, their music is one that takes hipster surf pop and absolutely pulverises it into glorious submission. Refusing to hide behind distortion (or, indeed, words), the tracks hang on the galloping guitar work that boarders on the menacing, pitched somewhere between the soundtrack to a spaghetti western and a day spent by the sea. There’s speed and conviction in every thing they do, almost effortlessly managing to create a sub-genre all of their own, away from the hype laden dandies of their peers across the Atlantic. Their debut EP has been lurking around for quite a while, and their album has been on the way for about as long, which is more than cause to get excited about. Growing old is terrible, but if this is the future of dad rock, at least there will be some gloriously swinging melodies to numb the pain.